It’s part of human nature to want to know what the future holds. I think of this as a
conundrum between predicting and forecasting. To me, predicting is quite bold: it
suggests that you know what’s coming. Forecasting is a little more modest: it suggests
that you are guessing based on available evidence.

During the last presidential election, we saw the risks of predicting. Most of thepundits were wrong. As a result, we are now given the task of figuring out how thisindustry will be affected by the potential changes in healthcare policy. As of thiswriting, congress is still debating what might go into the American Health Care Act(AHCA) that would change what we have now in the Affordable Care Act (ACA).

Certainly we are encouraged by the proposal to eliminate the Medical Device Tax, which has not helped
that sector of the industry. We are also encouraged by our investigation of the medical device sector in
this issue, showing that the top 50 companies have increased revenue overall by 10%, and some individual companies significantly more. In fact, in the entire list there are only six that suffered a downturn,
and one that stayed the same in terms of revenue. The other 43 saw gains, proof that this continues to be
a healthy segment of the industry.

The revenues of the Top 50 companies have reached a total of $328B, which is, to me, a very positive sign.
Also, the M&A market was active, with a value of over $100B in transactions and more in the pipeline.

In my role as someone who has to regularly make an educated guess as to the path forward for our
industry, I see mainly good news. We will continue to stay on top of both national and global developments to help you see what lies ahead.

And always, please keep the feedback coming. It all goes to making the magazine better for all of us.